Hong Kong (UCAN): Father Lu Danhua remains unaccounted for eight months after he was taken away from the dormitory of Qingtian Catholic Church in Zhejiang province, by personnel from Qingtian Religious Affairs Bureau.

When he was detained on 29 December 2017, bureau personnel said they just wanted a brief chat and later said the priest had been taken to Wenzhou to study new religious regulations and return after legal registration.

HONG KONG (UCAN): Father Lu Danhua from the diocese of Lishui in eastern Zhejiang province has been missing since government officials from State Administration for Religious Affairs took him away from a priests’ dormitory on December 29.

A witness to the incident said that the officials claimed Father Lu was only going for a brief chat.

He is the only priest of Lishui and was ordained by for the diocese by Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, from the unofficial Church in Wenzhou, on 14 December 2016.

HONG KONG (SE): Two parishes in the coastal province of Zhejiang in China discovered that the electricity to the Church compound had been cut off after they had refused to install security cameras.

Suddenly, it appears the two buildings have become fire hazards, as immediately after their refusal they were issued with a notice from the fire department saying that the buildings are dangerous when full of people.

WENZHOU (UCAN): The province of Zhejiang has been through a highly controversial period over the past four years, as Christians have been forced to watch more than 1,700 crosses being removed from Church buildings by government authorities.

But now that the secretary of the Communist Party that gave the demolition orders is moving on, some people think that it is time to take up the cross again.

BEIJING (UCAN): China has tightened the squeeze on Christians by forcing Catholic and Protestant Churches in the heavily Christian province of Zhejiang to install CCTV cameras both in and outside their buildings.

The government wants the unofficial and the official Catholic communities in Zhejiang to install surveillance cameras in their parish compounds by the end of March.

WENZHOU (SE): Authorities in Zhejiang province have moved against what has become a popular and successful ministry to the sick and dying by Christian people by banning all forms of religious activity in hospitals.

Ministry among the sick, as well as people who are isolated from their families has become a fast developing apostolate, with some entrepreneurial groups advertising among Christian communities for carers.

WENZHOU (SE): Relations between Churches and the local government in the province of Zhejiang, China, have been stretched over the past two years with a spate of demolition of crosses from Church buildings, but China Aid Media reported that the latest clash has been over money.

HONG KONG (SE): Pastor Huang Yizi, who was arrested in September last year on charges of endangering national security when he opposed the removal of crosses from Church buildings in Zhejiang, received a New Year gift when he was released from detention on February 11, during the Lunar New Year holiday period.

Pastor Huang said that he had been kept for five months in what is referred to as a black jail, a place of illegal detention used to house dissidents.

HONG KONG (UCAN): Be it a fresh campaign to remove crosses from Church buildings in Zhejiang or just catch up demolition on the backlog of jobs that were not completed last year, between January 1 and February 2 this year, 18 more Church buildings in the province were stripped of their crosses by government authorities, with 13 of them in the last week of January.